Former Hsinchu City Bureau of Cultural Affairs chief Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) yesterday admitted in court that she is the female in the now infamous sex-VCD which was illegally published by Scoop magazine five months ago.
It was the first time Chu admitted in public that she was the woman in the VCD.
PHOTO: LIAO RAY-SHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Taipei District Court (台北地方法院) Judges Hsu Shih-chen (徐世楨), Kuo Hui-ling (郭惠玲) and Li Hui-ping (黎惠萍) yesterday held the second pre-trial hearing in the sex-VCD scandal and summoned Chu and her married former boyfriend Tseng Chung-ming (曾仲銘) as witnesses, to clarify and identify two major items: First, are Tseng and Chu the couple in the VCD? Secondly, was the video shot and recorded at Chu's Tamsui apartment home?
The second hearing is a three-day hearing which began yesterday and will conclude tomorrow. Tseng did not show up and failed to ask for an excused absence for that hearing.
Yesterday, the court only summoned defendants Kuo Yu-ling (郭玉鈴), Kao Chun-chun (高淳淳), Shen Yeh (沈野), Shen Jung (沈嶸), Wei An (韋安) and Tsai Jen-chien (蔡仁堅). Tsai asked for sick leave and was the only one not to show up.
Judges approved a request by Kuo's lawyer Lee Ming-yu (李明諭) to play the 47-minute sex VCD in court for Chu to identify herself. Before the VCD started, Hsu, the judge, cleared the courtroom, including reporters.
"Due to the pornographic content of the VCD, the court now asks the public to leave the courtroom temporarily while the VCD is played," he said.
Chung Yung-sheng (鍾永盛), Chu's lawyer, left the courtroom and talked to the press while the VCD was still being played and examined by judges, prosecutors and lawyers. He said that Chu identified the characters in the sex video immediately.
"Judges offered Chu an option to take a break in another room if she didn't feel comfortable while the VCD was being played and she took it," Chung said.
The hearing resumed and Chu returned to the courtroom in approximately an hour.
She confirmed the location as her Tamsui residence and told judges that she first read the stories in the magazine and knew for sure that she was shot by hidden cameras when she was interviewed by Prosecutor Lu Hsiao-yuan (盧筱筠) on Dec. 31 last year.
Asked why she is so sure that she's the one in the video, Chu said, "That was me. I knew it."
When she was asked to identify the male in bed with her, she said, "It is my understanding that it is Tseng."
Taipei Senior Prosecutor Lin Jinn-tsun (林錦村) indicted 11 people involved in the case on Feb. 7.
The 11 are Kuo, described as a spiritual teacher who was also one of Chu's closest friends, with a recommended four-year sentence; Kuo's 19-year-old daughter, Kao; former Hsinchu mayor Tsai, with a recommended one-year sentence; Scoop magazine President Shen Yeh, with a recommended two-year-and-two-month sentence; his daughter, who is also the publisher of the magazine, Shen Jung, with a recommended one-year-and-four-month sentence; Shen Yeh's assistant Wei with a recommended one-year-and-ten-month sentence; the magazine's employees Lin Jia-nan (林家男), Shao Wei-hsin (邵偉信), Wang Hsu-yun (王緒筠) and Wang Ya-wei (王亞唯); and Chung-ti Technology's (中帝科技) owner Hu Chung-lin (胡鍾琳).
Chung-ti Technology was the company that produced and duplicated the VCD for Scoop magazine.
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